Project Description
Our client’s brief was to create a restaurant that was fun and representative of Indian “wabi-sabi”—known as “jugaad” in Hindi—the idea that there is art and use in broken things…that the non-conventional can be useful and valuable, a nod to the innovative spirit of humanity.
The restaurant is named after a Hindi word that means an explosion…a “bang and blast” that the new venue’s chef is creating with his street-food inspired cuisine.
Our design for the restaurant is a bold and kinetic interpretation of these two sentiments.
Located in the dynamic setting of New York’s brand-new Essex Market, we also sought to visually express the city’s ongoing movement and change. The wall sculptures provide a “shattered” canvas, shards of objects that hint at a whole, but one that cannot be re-created. Backlighting the sculptural forms emphasizes the negative space between them.
Handmade screens at the kitchen and bathroom are made of rusted steel in a random triangular geometry, as are the pendant lights. The bar top is patinaed galvanized metal. The floors are raw concrete.
The bar area, featuring a bottle-storing “chandelier,” creates a centerpiece for more jugaad, converted from what looks like an old oil barrel. The bottles and back bar mural are painted with Indian icons, motifs, and Hindi phrases. These backlit, graffiti-adorned bottles bring to mind a myriad collection of bootleg elixirs.
The bar back has a randomly-delineated wood grill structure floating over a painted mural, with discreet backlighting, suggesting a gate near an urban graffitied wall.